The invention resides in the art of closures or containers, and more particularly in the area of medicine bottles or containers having safety features associated therewith.
In the past, pharmacists would individually count and package the medicine for each of their customers at the moment and point of sale, each customer getting individual and personalized attention. Thus, with the customer before him and with the prescription in hand, the pharmacist would count the pills, capsules, or the like which were prescribed, from a large mass container into the small container to be ultimately given to the customer. Additionally, this smaller container was generally transparent, such that while the pharmacist was measuring out the amount of medicine to be dispensed, right up to the point of handing the transparent container to the customer, the pharmacist could visually apprise himself of the type of medicine being dispensed to satisfy himself that such medicine was that prescribed.
However, in recent years, skyrocketing medical costs, including the cost of medicines, have pressed the pharmaceutical industry, from the manufacturer to the pharmacist, into practices which have eliminated a number of previously practiced safeguards, increasing the potential of a patient receiving medicine other than that prescribed.
Today, many pharmacists prepackage their more common medication in bottles of 30, 50, 100, or any of the commonly prescribed number. This is done during the pharmacist's "slow" hours, so that during busier hours of the day the pharmacist will not have to count out the number of pills or capsules prescribed while the patient is actually present with his prescription. Accordingly, the medication handed the patient frequently is not examined and counted with that particular patient and his prescription in mind, but is counted, identified, and prepackaged weeks before. Thus, the safety factor of having the pharmacist fill the patient's small bottle from a larger mass bottle, with the patient and his prescription right at hand, is now lost.
Today, pharmaceuticals are often dispensed in dark brown bottles, rather than the clear bottles of days gone by. The dark color of these bottles, either of glass or plastic, acts as a light filter to protect those medications which lose their potency when subjected to light. The use of such bottles has resulted in the loss of yet another safety factor in that these translucent or substantially opaque pill bottles prevent the pharmacist from identifying the exact color, shape, and type of medication within the bottle. Formerly, just before handing the patient the bottle, the pharmacist could look through the clear glass or plastic and be certain that the size, shape, and color of the medicine dispensed was in accordance with the prescription. However, the dark brown pill bottles presently used prevent such final inspection.
The pharmaceutical industry is now using safety top pill bottles as child-proof containers. While the advent of such bottles has probably saved numerous lives, they have presented a problem in that many adults find them difficult to open and even some pharmacists may have a problem late in the day when their hands may be tired from opening and checking several hundred such bottles. Accordingly, a third safety factor is lost in that the pharmacist, who can no longer see through the clear bottle, and who used to open the brown bottle without a safety top just before handing it to the patient to do a final check of medicine identification, may no longer bother to open the more difficult child-proof top of the brown bottle.
Finally, in the past, pharmacies kept their shelf drugs stored by classification of the drug. For example, antibodies were maintained in one place, diuretics in another place, analgesics in still another place, and so forth. Thus, when a patient received the wrong medicine by mistake, it was generally at least in the correct classification of drugs, and the mistake may have been nothing more than the selection of a different brand name than prescribed. However, many pharmacists have now inventoried their drugs alphabetically. With such alphabetical storage of drugs, if a pharmacist grasps the wrong prepackaged medication, he most likely will hand the patient a drug completely different from that intended, a drug which could indeed be totally contrary to that prescribed. For example, in an instance known to applicant, when Diabinese (a hypoglycemic agent) was given to an epileptic instead of Dilantin (an anti-seizure agent), death resulted.
The foregoing is not an exhaustive list of the erosion of safety factors present in the pharmaceutical industry. While such erosion has often been the result of advances in the art, it is nonetheless necessary to regain the safety factor of point of sale review and inspection of medicine by the pharmacist.